Without You
by Artemisdesari
Summary: Songfic that ran away with me. Dean/Castiel post 5x22. Dean needs someone to fix him, Castiel is starting to think about his situation. Some Dean/Lisa due to time frame.
1. Chapter 1

_First part of the songfic that got out of hand! This is the answer to a prompt from **DeanWinchesterPresents** requesting fic written to Breaking Benjamin's Without You. This _will_ be Dean/Castiel. Actually this song screams out for it almost as much as the last request did. It also doubles up as another post Swan Song response, because I don't like that Cas went back upstairs and I don't think that this automatically means that Dean's fixed now. Does that make me bad?_

_**Disclaimer:** Neither song nor show are mine. I'm merely borrowing them and I will give them back when I'm good and done. It could take a while but eventually I'll return them almost as good as new.  
_

Without You.

_Search for the answers I knew all along_

_I lost myself, we all fall down_

Dean Winchester has never been much of a man to stay in one place at any given time. He has always been happier on the road and whether that be on the road alone, with his family or with his friends, it has always been home to him. He has always known this, knows that those who understand even the smallest part of him understand it too even if they never want to admit to it.

Even with that certain fact Dean made a promise to his brother, the kind of promise that he cannot go back upon because it was effectively Sam's dying wish. Dean promised to find Lisa and try to live a normal life and that is exactly what he is trying to do. He has given up the life of a hunter, has even gone so far as to box up the weapons that would normally live in the trunk of the Impala and put them somewhere out of sight and out of mind. The house is warded in such a way that he cannot see them and anything that might remind of his former life has been cut off and cut out.

Dean wants to forget. He wants to forget his loss, his pain, his past. He wants to hide from the memory of what Sam became with Lucifer in control of his body. He wants to hide from the memories of Hell and the months of agony at knowing that he is in part responsible for the apocalypse that nearly was. He wants to forget _himself_.

So he stays with Lisa. He tries to find joy in life and in _living_ in a way that he has never been able to before. He tries to find work and make friends that are all his own and all new and he cannot help but know, deep down, that this is not the way that things are meant to be for him.

He knows that this is not the life that he should have because there is no one here who understands, not even Lisa can. No one has seen the terrible things he has. No one knows the primal fear that fills a man on a full moon when hunting a werewolf. No one has seen the deep pits of Hell and experienced that special hospitality reserved for hunters. All of these people have lived their 'apple pie' lives, and though they are not perfect, they are a great deal better than the life that has been his.

They have experienced things that he has never been able to, they have had security, they have been able to keep their dreams and a measure of innocence. They do not wake in the night screaming for mercy, or for death. They do not cry out to a brother rotting in a cage with trapped archangels and they do not feel unutterable sorrow and emptiness in the place where a lowly angel once stood.

Dean feels all of that, he experiences all of that, because that has been his lot in this world and in this universe. He has experienced all of this because he is a hunter and they are mere broken shells of men who do not know how to function in a world of naive sceptics and laws that cannot be bent. He is a man pulled from Hell so that he could become the vessel for an archangel. He is the one who could have handed the world to the Heavens or to Hell. He is the man who stood side by side with angel and demon and told two of the most powerful creatures in the world 'no more'.

Dean has gone up against pagan gods, against the creatures that exist in people's nightmares and children's tales. He has gone up against legends and impossibilities and he has stood firm in their path. He defeated them.

So he cannot understand why this normal life scares him so. He cannot understand why he does not want to embrace it as Sam says that he should. He cannot understand why Lisa has been so willing to open her home and her life to him and he cannot understand why he wishes that this could have been him and Cas rather than the way that it is.

He misses the angel. It takes him months to realise that this is what is missing in his new life. The unexpected calls and the gruff incomprehension of the needs of humans. The quiet flap of wings too great and too brilliant to be perceived by his eyes and the comfort of knowing that the being who pulled him out of Hell, the one who turned his back on Heaven for Dean, is there to help him.

Instead he goes through the nights mostly alone, mostly afraid, and needing that understanding that only another being who has seen Hell can give. He tries to explain it to Lisa one day while Ben is at baseball and fails miserably at it because there are no words to describe the unimaginable horrors that Hell can inflict upon a soul. The wounds that can be created but never healed, not even with the touch of an angel. He knows that though she tries, she can never understand and that is when it strikes him the hardest that this can never be his life. This is never what he was meant to be.

He is lost here, in this place where his memories of his past tie him to the fear of one day revisiting it. He is alone, living with a woman he hardly really knows and her son who treats him with wary friendship now that he is older. He has no ties with his old life, Bobby is hunting on his own and respects Dean's need for normalcy, Sam is in Hell and Castiel ran back off up to Heaven the first chance that he got.

He thinks that maybe he should call Bobby, that maybe he should put an end to the entire charade that he has going here with Lisa. He does not. Instead he smiles an empty smile and laughs a dead laugh and _exists_ as the man that _Sam_ wanted him to become.

It does not mean that he is not still broken.

_Never the wiser of what I've become_

_Alone I stand a broken man_


	2. Chapter 2

_I'm aiming for short daily snippets here as much as possible (family permitting) so here is the next bit._

**_All I have is one last chance_**

**_I won't turn my back on you_**

Castiel knows that Heaven was never going to be the same place that he left, he knows that he had only one opportunity to slip back in and amongst the ranks of the angels before someone as capable of freedom of thought slipped into the power vacuum first. He followed his instincts on this and a part of him is screaming out that they were completely wrong.

He should never have left Dean.

So he watches. He keeps an eye on the hunter even as he makes his way through the ranks of the angels and cuts out those who truly agreed with Michael's plan to bring paradise to the Earth. He watches Dean laugh and joke with the woman Lisa and her son. He watches as Dean has the life that his brother wanted for him and he tries to feel joy in that. Castiel came back to Heaven so that his presence would not upset what the man was trying to achieve with this old flame. He returned to Heaven so that Dean could _have_ a life.

He has to wonder why watching Dean as he is now is so painful to him, especially when the angel knows that this is something that the hunter has always wanted a chance at. He knows that this should be good for the hunter, should be something that he needs and yet he cannot help but notice that Dean's laugh holds little joy and that his smile is thin and brittle. The angel knows a great deal about the man. He knows what Dean experienced in Hell and he knows what the hunter has done in his life and it makes him wonder if that makes the man suited to a life of normalcy and routine at all.

It makes him wonder if he should have stayed.

Regret is something that Castiel is not accustomed to, is not something that he should be able to feel and he knows that there is a possibility that his Father left the depth of emotion there to remind him of one of the great wonders of humanity. He suspects that it is simply that he fell too far and felt too much to truly forget _how_ to feel.

The angel will not turn his back on his friend, however, no matter the way that they parted and the tensions of his time on Earth, he cannot abandon Dean entirely. He never would, even though the hunter thinks that he believes that. Castiel learnt a great deal about humanity from Dean, he learnt a great deal about himself too, and so he will be there if the hunter needs him. The angel will be there to attempt to soothe the hunter's nightmares, he will try to understand the way that Hell haunts the man and the _need_ to be accepted and forgiven for everything done in that terrible place.

Castiel knows that this will likely affect his standing in Heaven, his bid for leadership now there is no one to fill that role, but he will not let his friend languish broken and defeated in a house that he cannot call home. The angel also knows that Dean will not welcome this, that the hunter will push him away and berate him, but that in the depths of his soul Dean will be glad that Castiel watches out for him, glad that he _cares_, and so the angel will do it.

Dean's misery there is in part, he believes, his fault. He knew that when he decided to leave Dean would not be happy about it but he felt it would be necessary. He honestly thought that the hunter could be happy in this life that Sam wanted the man to have. He deliberately ignored everything that he has ever known about Dean.

Castiel pulled Dean from Hell, he held the hunter's shattered and terrified soul in his hands, and he knit together the body eaten by decay. He knows the man more intimately than even brother or father ever could and he knows that he will never truly understand Dean's complexities, Dean's overwhelming humanity. Given that he will never be able to understand this aspect of his friend, he will never know how to truly fix him either.

Dean is a broken man, damaged by Hell and betrayals, and Castiel does not know how to make that right. He wishes that he did.

The best that he can do, he realises, is offer to help Dean. He can offer to stand by the hunter in the way that he should have done after Sam was locked in the pit and support him as he struggles away from the memories of Hell and the things that the man has been forced to do. Castiel can offer the unconditional love of one who will never recoil from knowing the events in the pit and the actions that Dean took even though he knows that love will never be returned with anything other than a grudging friendship.

**_Take my hand drag me down_**

**_If you fall then I will too_**

**_And I can't save what's left of you_**


	3. Chapter 3

_Um, I'm thinking that I might need to start warning people about the general angst levels of the stuff that I write. Seriously, fluff is apparently not my thing even when the sun is blazing right outside my window!_

**_Sing something new_**

**_I have nothing left_**

**_I can't face the dark without you_**

It is always the same thing, always the same words that fall from between Lisa's lips. The same wish that Dean would talk to her about his past, the same desire to understand when he knows that there is no possible way to make her see that there is no possible way that she can. If Lisa knew the things that he had done Dean knows that she would throw him out onto the street with nothing more than his car and his wits.

He is low on the latter as it stands right now.

He has nothing left, he knows that, nothing more to lose than the life that Lisa is allowing him to build here, the normalcy that he should want but cannot bring himself to truly crave. He cannot bring himself to appreciate it because he has lost all the other important things.

Sam is in Hell, Cas turned his back, his mom and dad are both dead and long gone, and he pushed Bobby away in his desperation to get away from everything that reminded him of the family he no longer has. Dean is alone and the world seems so much darker now than it did before they locked Lucifer away.

Before they put Lucifer in the pit Dean could see a future, a future with Sam and with Cas. A future hunting, evil will not rest just because the ultimate bad guy is locked away again, a future where they have a purpose and a family. A future with friendship. What he has is not what he wanted and he wishes that Castiel had stayed. He wishes that he had fought harder even though he knows what it would have cost the angel to do so.

He simply does not believe that he can continue to face the nightmares and the agonies without the one who pulled him from Hell there. He does not dream of Lisa, when he dreams at all, he dreams of Castiel. Of wide blue eyes and unruly black hair. Those nights are the best, the nights when gentle dreams of conversations with Cas infuse his mind with the kind of calm he has not felt since before his father vanished on a solo hunt for the demon that would eventually claim his soul.

He needs Castiel back and he wishes there were some way to contact him. There is nothing. He needs saving, Dean knows this now, and he really believes that Castiel is the one who can do it. He truly believes that everything that is broken in him can be fixed, if only Cas would be there to help him and to understand him and he has no idea why he has reached that conclusion at all.

Fact of the matter is, Castiel is the only friend he has who can comprehend. The only one who has _seen_ and that makes him the only one who can. This is not to imply that Castiel has ever been much help to him in the past, not in this, but a part of him is ready to acknowledge that he needs to start to share what happened to him if he is going to ever have a chance of healing. He needs to share it with Cas.

The part of him that is still a hunter, and even with his best efforts it is an ever increasing part, tells him that this is a weakness. The part that is hunter tells him to suppress everything under an ever stronger layer of strong drink and short nights. The part that is a hunter wants him to stop this charade and get back to the hard work of saving people and hunting things. It is what he was born for.

It is all he knows.

What he is becoming increasingly more aware of is that he cannot stay with Lisa and Ben anymore. The woman's lovely face is slowly becoming drawn with sleepless nights and concern, her son is ever more wary of the former hunter who rarely makes it through the night without screaming or drinking. Dean cannot continue to live a lie and see Sam's face on street corners because he is trying to delude himself into thinking that somehow his brother may have escaped. He cannot allow _Sam_ to become the reason that he remains in Lisa's home, it is not fair on any of them.

He has to leave. This is not his dream anymore and he is not Sam. He cannot be this normal person and Lisa does not deserve to have the broken mess that he has become inflicted upon her. Dean knows that he needs to leave, but he cannot face the loneliness that awaits him. He cannot face the idea that he will have to fight alone and he does not _want _to do this alone.

It is just one more thing that he needs Cas for.

**_There's nothing left to lose_**

**_The fight never ends_**

**_I can't face the dark without you_**


	4. Chapter 4

**_Swallow me under and pull me apart_**

**_I understand there's nothing left_**

Cas is starting to realise that there is nothing more in Heaven for him. Not even the position that he had once thought to take on. The work of helping his brethren to understand that they _can_ think for themselves and they _do_ have a small measure of free will is more difficult than expected. It is an empty task and he knows this and even on the fringes he can feel Dean's soul crying out for him.

It is familiar, this agony of being away from his friend, because it is the same pain he felt when he severed his connection to his family in favour of the human. Castiel knows that he became too attached to Dean and too attached to humanity, but there is a love there that seems to be utterly without guile, utterly pure in a way that of Heaven is not.

Dean does not welcome people into his life easily, does not let people close to him, and the fact that the hunter has opened a place for the angel in his tight knit family shows Castiel that the man must have _some_ feeling for him. Even if it is just familial trust it is better than being an outcast and a mere tool.

At the same time, Castiel is under no illusions. This friendship has been hard forged and dogged with betrayals and breaches of faith that may take years to heal. Years that they never managed to have and that is when the angel realises that as broken as Dean is, he is no less of a mess. Castiel is no less damaged than the hunter, though it is in a vastly different way, and perhaps that is why he has such an affinity for the man.

The damage, though subtle, has been done over the two years that he has known Dean. Castiel suspects that the majority of it has been done _by_ Dean in some round about way. He cannot bring himself to resent the hunter for it, knows that the man likely did not know what he was doing. Castiel knows that Dean had no idea of the effect his request would have. He knows that the hunter would have made it all the same, though, even if he did. Dean always thinks about one other before himself, always thinks of _Sam_ before himself. Even before the _world_ the hunter will protect his brother.

Castiel has been trying to help as best he can, trying to give Dean restful nights with dreams of friendship. The hunter's agony, even in his subconscious, is never far away and Castiel recognises it as that soul deep wound that no grace will ever heal. It is something that only Dean's forgiveness of himself can fix. It is something that Castiel knows the man will never do.

The hunter is not the only one who feels a measure of failure at the way that his life has progressed and Castiel knows that it is almost time. He has done enough, done all that he can, and this time when he leaves there will be no lessening, no loss of grace. This time when he leaves he will accept how he is to become. He will acknowledge the pain of such change and embrace it because he has done this before and it is not so hard as he thought.

It comes as something of a surprise to appear at the home of the woman that Dean lives with to realise that the hunter has packed up this normal life that Sam ordered him to have and left. Deep in his soul, the angel wonders at the surprise even as he realises that finding the hunter this time is going to be so much harder than before. Dean's cell phone number has changed, most certainly, he still has the Enochian carved into his ribs and in all likelihood the hunter does not want to be found.

This is going to be harder than Castiel had imagined and he finds that he welcomes the challenge to locate his friend. He welcomes the travel over the continent and the chance to meet new people. It is but another opportunity, in it's own way, to find out more about his own learnt humanity. It is another opportunity to learn more about the human that he cares about it. It is another chance to learn.

He understands the pain this time, he understands that wrench in his soul when he slips from Heaven for the final time in Dean's lifetime. He understands the way that his severance from his brothers and sisters hurts and he knows that it does not hurt so much this time as it could have done. It does not hurt so much because this time it is more like coming home. It is the agony of wondering whether Dean will even want to see him.

There is another sensation there, just below the surface of wonder and fear, and that is of trepidation. The worry that even if Dean will speak to him, he will not understand the emotion that Castiel cannot truly comprehend. He will not feel as the angel does and that Castiel will have sacrificed everything for him and it will once again be all for naught.

It does not matter. He has done this all for Dean before and he will do it again. He will sacrifice himself for his hunter time and again because Dean has taught him so much, has given him so much.

For the first time in his existence Castiel has seen proof that his Father cares about him in some measure, and he cannot help but remember that it has been through aiding the Winchesters that he found this.

He cannot forget that because of the Winchesters he has learnt what it is to love.

**_Pain so familiar and close to the heart_**

**_No more, no less, I won't forget_**


	5. Chapter 5

**_Come back down _**

**_Save yourself_**

The road is lonely, Dean realises after only an hour of driving. He has spent so long with others the past few months that he finds the relative silence of the Impala oppressive. The hunter has travelled alone in the past, has been without Sam or Castiel or his dad for weeks at a time on occasion, but this time it is different. This time not a single one of the three people, three of the four most important people, is contact able.

His contact with Bobby is sporadic, a phone call here to tell the older man know that he has left Lisa's and another to tell him that Dean is back in the job. The other hunter takes the time to call him an 'idjit' on occasion, but otherwise it is hardly regular contact. The isolation is severe. Sam, he knows, is forever beyond his reach, but Cas, Dean really does hope that he can one day find some way of reaching Castiel.

The only thing that he can think of to do to reach the angel is to make his way to Heaven. Dean knows that as soon as he sets a foot in Heaven Castiel will know about it. This does not mean that he believes that the angel will come running, but he is aware that Cas will know.

With no other option, no other way, of reaching the angel Dean is almost at his wits end. Eventually, one night, when he has a fifth of whiskey on board and he is alone in his motel room, Dean starts to talk to thin air. Part of him hopes that Castiel will hear him and find him. Part of him hopes that he will ignore it and carry on as the Sheriff of Heaven.

"I left, Cas," he slurs as he stares up at the ceiling. "Couldn't keep doing it to her. The nightmares and everything, wasn't fair. I tried, tried to be what Sam wanted me to be and I can't do it."

So it continues, night after night he mutters and he rambles, he talks to the uncaring ceiling and drinks his fifth of whiskey. He tells the angel about his day, talks through the hunt. Sometimes he admits to catching glimpses of Sam, admits that he thinks he is losing his mind or that the years of hard drinking and living are making themselves known.

The longer he goes with no response from the angel the more he begins to wonder if Cas really _does_ give a damn. There is no sign and no sound from the angel that Castiel has even heard him. He knows that the angel would not forget him, he doubts that Cas could ever forget anything, but he suspects that he has been dropped to the bottom of Castiel's pile of concerns and that hurts a little.

Dean is damaged, he is broken, he is alone. The worst of it is that he knows that he probably deserves everything that he has right now and that all of that is absolutely nothing. In a very real sense he has given nothing of himself since Castiel pulled him from Hell. He has taken every part of him that could be hurt or damaged by another and drawn it inside to be protected and saved. No one has been allowed close, not since Sam's unwitting betrayal, no one has been permitted to slip over the wall around his emotions. No one except Castiel.

Dean misses the angel, his friend, he needs the angel and he has to find a way to him. He needs Cas to help him and he is terrified to admit to the reasons behind it. He is terrified of the truth that dances within his protected heart.

**_I can't find my way to you_**

**_And I can't bear and face the truth_**


	6. Chapter 6

_**Sing something new**_

_**I have nothing left**_

_**I can't face the dark without you**_

Castiel knows that he does not have much time left to find Dean before something goes wrong. Something always goes wrong where his hunter is concerned and the angel is worried. He worries about the nights where Dean is alone, in a car, in a motel or an abandoned house. He worries about the way that Dean used to drink. He worries about the hunts with no brother and no angel to watch over the human.

Dean is reckless when he is alone, foolish when he believes that he has nothing more to lose and Castiel knows that he has reached that point now. Dean has been abandoned by all those who love him and all those that he can bring himself to care about in return. It stands to reason that he would run before it could happen to him again and the angel reasons that this is as much his fault as it is anyone else's.

He should have stayed.

The angel has taken many actions during the last two years that he regrets, there is no other way to describe the soul deep coiling of darkness that eats at him, but he is coming to believe that his abandonment of Dean in that one moment that the hunter needed him the most is his greatest regret. This is not an emotion that Castiel likes experiencing but it is the one that follows him through the darkness as he searches for his hunter, searches for his friend.

Eventually the angel swallows what pride he has, a quantity far greater than he should possess, and does what he knows he should have done in the first place. He goes to see Bobby Singer.

The older hunter is utterly unimpressed with Castiel. His words are not kind and his threat of a shotgun, though he knows it will be not have any affect on the angel, shows just how angry his is with Castiel. The angel abandoned Dean and he knows that he deserves every word of Bobby's anger, every expression of the older man's rage.

"Fool boy wouldn't ever of admitted it, but he _needed_ you!" Bobby rages, accuses Castiel of using Dean to further his own ends and informs the angel that he will be damned if he sees such a thing happen again. Castiel can understand his feelings and the words are nothing that the deep, black, parts of him have not whispered over the months.

Even though his grace has been returned, amplified even, Castiel is not the angel that he once was. He has seen too much of Hell, seen too much of the darkness that lingers in the being of his own kind. He has seen humanity at it's best and at it's worst and he finds that neither human nor demon nor angel is completely clear of blame in everything that has happened.

He is as culpable as his brethren and he knows that he will never fully atone for the actions he took against Dean in the early days of their acquaintance. He can at least begin to try. He can at least try to amend the mistake of leaving so soon after Sam was locked in Hell. He can try to help the younger hunter heal and hope that the man can, in some measure, help him.

Castiel knows he does not really deserve Bobby's aid, he does not deserve Dean's forgiveness for leaving and he does not deserve to have a chance to understand why this one human man became so much more important that his whole family, but he wants that chance. He wants to understand and he tries his best to explain it to Bobby though the words are not easy to find and the need to use them grates on him. Castiel is an angel, accustomed to the instant passing and understanding of orders on the part of his brethren. The human method of conversation is still more than a little baffling to him.

The lack of understanding behind all of this is almost painful but still he continues to _try_ to make all this work in some way.

After many hours of fast talking and dodging the occasional shot, Castiel finally persuades Bobby to help and is relieved when the older hunter snaps open his phone and withdraws a little to talk to Dean. Even with the distance, even with the way that Bobby shields the hand set, Castiel can still make out the muffled tones of Dean's voice. The angel can still hear that broken note and lost heart. He knows that Dean has all but given up and when Bobby finally gives him the hunter's current location he curses himself for a fool.

Where Dean is right now is the same part of the continent that Castiel has been feeling the drawing pull of a prayer in his name. If he thinks about it he has been feeling this tug for some time, always in a different place and on exactly the kind of meandering course that Dean would take rather than going from one side of the great land mass to the other.

He should have known, should have followed, and his ignorance has cost him a great deal of time. He thanks Bobby, genuinely grateful for the older hunter's help, and takes a breath in preparation.

"Don't expect him to be pleased to see you," Bobby tells him and one side of Castiel's mouth quirks up in a half smile as he feels his head tilt a little. Then he spreads his wings and heads to the hotel that contains the still cracked soul of his friend. He hopes that he can make this right. He needs to make this right.

He cannot return to Heaven if he fails.

_**There's nothing left to lose**_

_**The fight never ends**_

_**I can't face the dark without you**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**I wanted to forgive**_

_**I'm trying to forgive**_

Dean feels almost empty these days, the ravages of grief have torn through him for too long and left him almost numb to all but loneliness and anger. He has been ignoring the ache of that loneliness as much as he can the last few days, has been trying so hard to ignore the reasons that he feels this so keenly. He is still angry, though whether it is more at himself or at others he is not sure, and he knows that he needs to focus more on the tasks at hand. He needs to focus on the hunt.

It does not change the fact that he misses Castiel almost as much as he misses Sam.

Much as he wants to see the angel again, however, much as he wants to talk to him, Dean is still frustrated, still angry, with the powerful being. Castiel left, turned his back on the hunter and fluttered away, when Dean needed him the most and he cannot help but be annoyed about that.

When Bobby calls and asks where he is Dean goes on high alert, even though the older hunter quickly justifies it by saying that there was a possible hunt on the other side of the country. The sole remaining Winchester did not make it through the apocalypse, after all, without learning that nothing ever comes at face value. Unfortunately, that includes angels. So he prepares himself, even as he rambles his now regular nightly monologue to Castiel. He has found that talking to the ceiling, even if it is about the case he is working, helps to lessen the ache just a little bit.

"Dean," the gravelled rasp of Castiel's voice floods over him and for a horrible moment he thinks that he has imagined it, that he has imagined the gentle stirring of too still air and the rustle of wings being folded into the spaces between reality.

"Cas?" Upon turning to see the angel, in his usual vessel, he feels a burst of confused joy at seeing him. It is quickly followed by the return of the anger that has filled him for too long and it is that emotion which greets the friend he has been separated from for too great a time.

Castiel has to have a reason for being here and as well as he knows his friend Dean cannot help but suspect that it is something that the angel wants him to do. It makes his greeting less than gracious and as much as Cas tries to hide it, Dean can see the hurt flicker across the angel's eyes. Then blue eyes lower and there is a measure of shame there.

"There's got to be a _reason_, Cas," Dean snaps, "you were all fired up to get the hell out and screw the rest of us. So why are you here?"

"I'm no longer certain," the angel replies, lifting his eyes to meet the hunter's once more and behind the blue is something dark and ancient and powerful. Behind the blue Castiel is all archangel and Dean feels a little bit of the anger drain away at the response. Truth be told he _wants_ to forgive Castiel for leaving, he wants to enjoy his friend's presence and try to work out why he craves the angel's gaze and touch so much. Except that he has been worried, frightened even, by these emotions and he does not want to explore the possible consequences of them just yet.

Instead he locks his tired gaze with the aggravated one of Cas and refuses to look away. They have always been better at communicating nonverbally, anyway, and perhaps this way they can come to understand what neither appears to be capable of putting to words. Dean can try to tell Castiel that his anger is due to his own weakness rather than a desire for Cas to leave and he can try to find his answers

"Heaven doesn't need me," Castiel admits finally and it stirs some emotion in Dean, fury at the other angels and frustration at the thought that he is second choice.

"And I do?" He hisses, expecting to see Cas flinch and surprised when the angel merely shifts one foot a little.

"Perhaps," a half shrug accompanies the word. "Or, perhaps, _I_ didn't need them as much as I thought." Dean does not know what to say in response to that, simply watches as Castiel takes a step closer and pauses. "Perhaps _I_ needed _you_ more."

The confession hangs heavy between them, words not delivered with confidence but without the sort of hesitancy that Dean would have used.

"You left," the hunter responds gruffly and curses the words as soon as they are out of his mouth, curses the way that they make him feel like a twelve year old girl and hates the needy way that they feel.

"You never asked me to stay," Castiel responds and it takes Dean a moment to realise that is true. He threatened, he blustered, he made his anger clear and he got exactly what he asked for. He got Lucifer in Hell, Michael out of the way and Castiel back. Until this moment he has never thought about how much he had wanted Cas to make it through, never thought about how badly he had needed the angel in his life even before then.

"Cas," he cannot finish the sentence, cannot say the words but the angel's eyes speak them. Castiel's eyes tell him that the angel knows what is going through his mind. Cas knows that Dean wants him to stay this time and the agreement is as silent as the request.

_**Don't leave me here again**_

_**I'm with you forever, the end**_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Sing something new**_

_**I have nothing left**_

_**I can't face the dark without you**_

Though Castiel has not heard the word, he knows that Dean wants him to stay, he knows that Dean needs him by his side and the angel is no less eager to remain in this place with him. Heaven is not what it once was, Castiel is not what he once was, and he has begun to conclude that this is where he really does belong.

He quickly learns that the hunter is still having nightmares, nightmares about Hell, about the end of the apocalypse, even nightmares about Heaven itself. Nothing that Dean has experienced in his life has been the sort of thing to make dreams that would soothe and comfort the hunter and more often than not at night the angel finds himself awkwardly comforting his friend. It is exhausting and it does not answer any of the questions that hang over the angel, but there is a reward to it all the same.

By day they travel, they hunt, and they ignore the problems and the heartaches that have brought them to this place. Dean will never willingly discuss it and Castiel does not understand the emotions that he feels. There is no denying that he can see that the hunter finds this hard, this life without Sam, no denying that Dean is still relying on old methods of coping. Castiel knows, now, that this is not the way that it should be and he does not know how he is supposed to help here. He does not know what to do.

Dean's fight with his memories and his past will never be over, Castiel knows this and accepts this, and just as Dean will never escape his past the angel knows that he will not be free of his either. They have done too much together and seen too much and now that the angel is with the hunter he can see how much the man is suffering. It makes something deep within him _ache_ at knowing that he has added to the man's burdens.

He helps as best he can, with tentative touches and half formed sentences, and he is rebuffed constantly. Dean does not want his help, does not want his pity, and it takes everything that Castiel has to keep his temper in moments like this, everything that he has not to turn his back. The angel has never been good at containing his temper at the best of times, too prone to showing when Dean has gotten under his skin in bursts of anger and an inability to fully express the frustration that the hunter creates within him.

It cannot continue and Castiel is too confused by the emotions that swirl within him to help Dean in the way that he knows that he should. They can fix each other, he is utterly convinced of this, but he is unsure of how to start the process. Instead he watches, fixes Dean with that thousand mile stare that burns into the hunter's soul and when Dean will meet that gaze he can see the old defiance there.

That sight is something that warms his soul, to see that the last two years have not utterly broken Dean's spirit. He does what he can to fire that part of the man.

It is during the hunt that Castiel sees the most of the old Dean, sees the strong man who will not be pushed and will not be ordered into doing that which he does not want. It is during the hunt that he comes to understand that what he feels for the hunter is something he thought forever denied to him by grace. It is during the hunt that he sees Dean's eyes light up and fire blaze in the man's soul and Castiel _wants_.

He _lusts_ for this damaged human and as much as he knows that he should not, he cannot help it. He watches and he waits, he tries to deny himself until it gets to be too much. He denies it all until one day it becomes unbearable. One day when Dean is stood with a bloodied machete in one hand and the corpse of a vampire at his feet and Castiel cannot ignore it any longer. He slams the hunter back against the wall and presses their lips together.

_**There's nothing left to lose**_

_**The fight never ends**_

_**I can't face the dark without you**_


	9. Chapter 9

_That's the end of this one. I hope this turned out the way that DeanWinchesterPresents hoped although I must add that fire alarms in the middle of the night do not make for a good writing environment._

_**Holding the hand that holds me down**_

_**I forgive, forget you, the end**_

Dean cannot stop thinking about the way that Castiel kissed him a few days ago. He cannot deny that it felt good, cannot deny that it filled something buried deep in him with warmth and longing, but at the same time it has him shaken. This is not the sort of thing that Cas would normally do, not the sort of action that the angel would usually take, and it has the hunter baffled.

He still cannot look at his friend without wondering if Castiel will push him away if he tries to kiss him again and he wishes he knew how this need had managed to crawl so far under his skin. Dean is also coming to realise, however, that this is one of the reasons that he missed Castiel so much, that this need has been filling him slowly for the last two years. Now he knows that he has the opportunity to take what he wants and knows that Cas, on some level, wants it too. He _has_ to reach for this, because he is broken and lonely and he knows that if he does not try to get out of this dark place soon he is never going to be able to leave it.

Castiel anchors him, holds him in this world and gives him something to want. As hard as it is to _believe_ that he deserves that, he _has_ to try because he does not want to become the broken, revenge filled, shell that so many hunters have turned into. He is not healing, his thoughts too often on Sam and the things that have been taken from him, he is exhausted and falling apart and Cas is trying so hard to keep him in one piece.

It is not fair on the angel and Dean is not so much of a dick that he cannot see that. It is simply that he has no idea of what to do. Castiel has not mentioned the kiss, has barely even met his eyes, and Dean cannot keep clinging to a false hope. He has had too many of those in his life and he refuses to live through another one. He _wants_ Castiel, though he shies away from the thought that he may love the angel, and he is not going to let himself be denied that when he has lost so much already.

Cas, however, is very difficult to pin down and when Dean finally does he hesitates. This is what he wants, he cannot ignore the feeling of warmth that flooded him when the angel kissed him, but even though he _thinks_ that Cas wants the same he cannot be certain. He hesitates and it is almost as though the angel reads his intentions because he surges forward again, kissing Dean with a fervour that the hunter willingly matches.

This is all new, all strange, to the man but even though he does not know _why_ he wants Castiel in the way that he does, he knows that it makes him feel alive. It makes him feel a little more whole and a little more like living and the fact that Castiel is in the body of a man, though concerning given Dean's preferences, is not as repulsive as the hunter thought it would be.

"Is this why you came back?" Dean asks later when they are satiated and most certainly _not_ snuggling in the old motel room bed. Now that the heated moment has passed all of the old worries are returning, all of the doubt and the fear and the certainty that he will be left alone once more.

"Not entirely," the angel's voice is a little smug, "this is simply an unexpected benefit."

Dean concludes that he will have to do something about that tone and he does, at length, repeatedly.

He clings to Castiel through the dark times, he forgives the angel and his brother and all the others he has known for the imagined slights and abandonment. While he cannot forget, not truly, he manages to live with the memories and that is all that he can hope for.

_**Holding the hand that holds me down**_

_**I forgive you, forget you, the end**_


End file.
